A torn cry of “Help – forsake me not,” rang through the valleys, echoing up the hillsides and into the stars above. For the three nights of the Full Moon, these cries rippled the surface of the web. Alas, not one came to assist Burk Stolz. The good folk of Baltimore turned a deaf ear to his entreaties, for their hearts had turned to stone. The Sorcerer rejoiced.

It was May, and the sun rose bringing warmth with it. The lighted fires of Beltane flamed from sunrise to sunset in County Claire. They heralded a time of birth and prosperity. The sun streamed ripples of light upon the flax and green hills. Women threaded garlands of primroses and buttercups in their flowing hair. Happy children crafted butter-coloured marigolds and daisies into posies. When complete, they ran, scattering the odd petals upon the roots of ancient Oak Trees.

As fiddlers tweaked tunes upon the village green, the dancers twined their streamers. Like plaited wheat, they weaved in and out around the Maypole. Golden bees, sticky with pollen, flitted with the bird song as the day rolled into night. But not in Baltimore. The full moon rose in a cloudless sky, shining its light upon a soulless forest, rich with the rotting stench of decay and emptiness of life. Saplings and the tree guardians, like shrunken spirits, drooped, their coats of leaves falling before their time to the slimy undergrowth beneath. The once silvery waters from the springs and streams dribbled through an endless murky sea of despair. The grasses and low-lying vegetation weaved like needles as the wind sighed.

It was a sad time indeed for hungry wild animals that roamed in search of food amongst the rows of tumbled hills. While in County Claire, young couples sought the lush forests for nights of love making. In Baltimore, night creatures peeped through leaves in the surviving Linden and Oak trees. An owl, as it flew above, hooted the message, “Help! Forsake me not.”

These words sat with me today, and those it is to republished I felt it pertinent to the loss of trees throughout the environment – one moment here birds flitting about them and next to the ring of chain saws the logs neatly piled and dragged away taking with them a whole life, a home for birds, insects, and even foxes who nestle in the trees. So many trees that loomed in the sky setting the scenery gone, never to be replaced.